THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

a language of critique for information architecture

@stacysurla#reframeia

Stacy Merrill Surla

Banksy

@stacysurla

2At the Language of Critique roundtable last year, Marsha Haverty said If we dont have a way to describe what we do, well be limited to being wireframe monkeys. IA is more than wireframes. But were confined by the mindset that thinks IA is a box to check off on a project plan. If this is a problem for you, then youll want a way to change that mindset. A language of critique is going to help you become a better, more influential UX professional. And maybe youre at a stage in your career where youre elevating the practice. Are you teaching, researching, or publishing? Then you might be interested in the project to shape a language of critique. To develop IA as a discipline, we need a framework for evaluating the goodness of information architecture, both as a whole, and in specific cases.So what is a language of critique for IA? And whats missing from whatever were using now?

Jorge Arango

@stacysurla

3Think about psychology, literature, economics. All mature fields have a framework and a vocabulary for making sense of what they do. IA emerged as a practice, along with the emergence of the web. But we still lack a foundational framework that gets taught, that is continually developed and refined, and against which our work is measured. We lack a shared understanding of what we do.A seminal moment occurred a few years ago in Memphis, at the closing plenary of the IA Summit. Jesse James Garrett challenged the IA community to move beyond being a practice, and figure out how to become a discipline. He called for us to develop a language of critique. Keith Instone, Andrea Resmini, and other leaders are engaging the community right now to shape the future of IA. Theyve brought academics and practitioners together in workshops and roundtables. Its resulted in the book Reframing Information Architecture.

The M3 diagram

Practical problemsSolutions to problemsScientific problemsPracticeScienceTheories and modelsPhilosophical questionsEpistemologyParadigmsSOLUTIONSTHEORIESPARADIGMSThe M3 diagram

We can talk about our work as taking place on three levels. The bottom level is the level of applied work. The middle level concerns theories and models. The top level is the level of paradigms. This is called the Meta-Modeling Methodology or M3. It was developed by John Van Gigch, an organizational theorist, in 1989 as a way to look at how scientific disciplines ideally operate back and forth across different levels of inquiry. In Reframing Information Architecture, Lacerda and Lima-Marques proposed using the M3 model as a way to develop IA as a discipline.

SkeenaValleyGirlWe can... but we dont@stacysurla

5We can talk about our work as taking place at different levels. The problem is, we dont do that. We tend to collapse all questions of goodness into one packed layer, usually the bottom one. Why does this matter?A client is unhappy with your design. Is it because its poorly executed according to current best practices? Does it fail to take into account a significant paradigm say the growing importance of the 50-something market, or peoples expectations that things will work smoothly across mobile and desktop?Or do you actually have a handle on all these things? Is your design based on your firm grasp of practices and paradigm shifts your client is not aware of? We want to be able to talk clearly and constructively about these things, and the M3 model can help. So lets parse it out a little further.

Applied WorkStacy Surla@stacysurla

The bottom level, the level of applied work. Anything that involves designing or evaluating an artifact, like a website or a feature, is an example of this. You start with a practical problem. You need a search results page. An app to monitor energy consumption in the home. The output of work at this level is a solution to a practical problem. Now, how do you know how to do this work? You use your practices. And practices are informed by science, which comes from the next layer up.

World BankTheories and Models@stacysurla

Level 2, the level of theories and models. This includes concepts that help us understand the problem space. Some examples are: Designing for accessibility. Content strategy. Theories of behavior change. Responsive design. These are models for thinking about how to solve a problem.At this level we also see research that investigates whether specific practices work. This includes HCI literature, and your own publications and conference talks. User research youre conducting in support of your project can fall here as well.

NoodlefishParadigms@stacysurla

On to Level 3, the level of paradigms. This is philosophy. Its how we CAN know what we know. One way we can wrap our heads around this abstraction is by looking at whats changed and whats now possible, and then giving a name to that.For instance, think about Uber or Airbnb. We now have commerce with the promise of human connection. This is a paradigm we call the Sharing Economy.

NPRParadigms@stacysurla

Another interesting paradigm is emerging. In the current era were seeing four generations in the workforce at the same time. For instance, engineer and inventor Barbara Beskind was 89 when she pitched IDEO to hire her to design for aging populations. We can call this paradigm Active Aging.

Josh LibaParadigms@stacysurla

I dont know what this one is called, I havent heard a good name for it yet. Digimodernism. The Internet of Me. Selfie Realization. Here, the individual is at center stage. In the classical paradigm, culture is a spectacle before which we sit. The creator is primary, while we, the audience, watch and listen. In this new paradigm, the spectacle does not and cannot exist unless the individual intervenes. There is no Facebook unless we all write stupid stuff in it. Look at what were doing right now. You have a presenter on a stage, an audience seated around you, spoken words, pictures on a glowing screen. It smells like theater in the classic sense. But everyone here can co-create this act. The interesting stuff in this sort of performance is probably in the twitter stream of reactions.

SOLUTIONSPractical problemsPracticeSolutions to problems

Scientific problemsScienceTheories and modelsTHEORIES

Philosophical questionsEpistemologyParadigmsPARADIGMSJet Li :The Monkey KingM3 Model Example@stacysurla

To see how we not-wireframe-monkeys can use the M3 model in our practice, lets look at some examples.I was approached by a client to answer the question: does the Smokefree.gov website have a good information architecture? This is the kind of thing were asked to do on a regular basis design a good IA, or evaluate an IA for goodness. This is work at the applied level.Smokefree is a cross channel program. It includes websites for different audiences, text messaging programs in different languages, some native apps, and some social media platforms. Its a complex, maturing program thats designed to help people quit smoking. I suggested a heuristic evaluation. Where would heuristic evaluation be on this model? Its a research-based tool. So it lives at the level of theories and methods. We use Nielsens heuristics for user interface design, or something adapted from that set, usually. But as I observed to the client: were not living in the old web-only world anymore. Your program works through multiple channels. Youre aiming to deliver a connected experience to your users. So we really should be evaluating how well the IAs work across channels. This is a new paradigm. You could call it customer experience, or service design, though in fact those are things you DO to fulfill the demands of the paradigm. For now I call it the Paradigm of Cross Channel Connectedness.By the way, when we went looking for heuristics that would let us assess IA across channels, we couldnt find any. So we developed a set on our own, contributing back to the theories layer.

jennyrottenBack at the theories layer...@stacysurla

Heres another example of a challenge at the theories and models level.That same team wanted to know if specific information architectures can support people trying to change their behaviors, and quit smoking. Youd think the answer would be yes; theres an IA for that. We design tools to help people lose weight, get exercise, become better at saving money. Theres going to be research on IA and behavior change, right?We looked for empirical research on the effects of different information architectures on health outcomes, behavioral outcomes, or website engagement. Out of an initial 688 candidate papers, only 1 both looked at IA and controlled solely for IA. So only one paper could perhaps contribute some light on the question of whether specific IAs support people trying to change their behaviors. We know that some IAs are better for informing and persuading people than others. But we can't prove it, because there's a gap in our science. The language for asking the right questions is missing. Researchers aren't looking to fill that gap. And they don't know they're not looking.

judy_and_ed...you can change whats possible@stacysurla

Lets look at this another way. If I asked you about a project youre working on, Im confident you could describe the practical problem. And Im pretty sure you could talk about the models youre using to solve it. But what about the paradigm? Thats harder. Thats because the paradigm is the container that gives everything its shape. Its like water to the fish, or our nature to ourselves.But thinking about the paradigm is also powerful. If you can see the paradigm, you can see whats possible. If you can somehow affect the paradigm, you can change whats possible.

20th century philosopher Michel Foucault. He explored ways to understand the paradigm level in his book The Order of Things. He introduced the concept of the tabla, the order of a time. The tabla is bounded by things like historical context, common language, set of values, and mode of perception. The tabla sets the parameters for what we can experience, think, and do. Foucault shifted the focus away from deeds and discoveries that cause a particular field to develop, away from defining history as a progression from ignorance to knowledge. Instead he asked, what is it that allows a particular way of thinking to even take place? What enables a discovery to have any kind of impact?

starsandspiralsWhats behind whats possible?@stacysurla

When we think about paradigms, if we do think about paradigms, we tend to look for "the idea whose time has come." We do not spend enough thought on "the time" itself. This is strong stuff. Think about the sharing economy, or inclusive design, or active aging. A paradigm shift leaves evidence in the form of amazing things. But what if we allowed our gaze to move beyond the remarkable new things, and try to peer into what makes the shift possible?

Journey to the West@stacysurla

In the end, the point of talking about a language of critique is to help you in your own work, as we move beyond being wireframe monkeys. I have a quick exercise for us in making distinctions among the layers. First, think of a project youre working on. It could be work for a client, or a product youre designing, or research youre conducting. A book youre writing, or an event youre planning. Any project.

Exercise

http://svy.mk/1X4RQ7v@stacysurla

17Now go to this link. The URL is case specific. Im sorry, the ease of use for SurveyMonkey sucks when you have to type a link into a phone.As you answer these couple of questions, consider this. How does the paradigm youve selected affect the theories and models you have to work with in your project? How do both the paradigm, and the state of the art, impact how you do your work on a daily basis? Ill give you a few minutes to do the survey. Then well show the results on the screen.

Results

@stacysurla

18You can continue to add to this. Ill keep refreshing.[refresh]So what do we see? [Read through charts, discuss results of exercise]Lets talk about this exercise.What was your project?Did the paradigm shift you picked reveal anything about the theories and models youre operating with?Did this spark any ideas about your work on your project?

Join the conversationhttps://www.linkedin.com/groups/4945243@stacysurla

19If youd like to continue the conversation on developing a language of critique, youre invited to join the Reframe IA LinkedIn group. Next steps for the group include publishing the results of the roundtable this year and planning a workshop and other activities for the 2017 IA Summit.

ReferencesFoucault, Michel, The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences, Vintage Books, 1994Lacerda, Flavia and Mamede Lima-Marques, Information Architecture as a Discipline A Methodological Approach, in Reframing Information Architecture, Springer International Publishing, 2014Morricone, Ennio, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The Ukulele Orchestra of Great BritainPugatch, J., et al, Systematic Review of Information Architecture of Web-based Interventions to Improve Health Outcomes, Poster Presentation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention NCHCMM, Atlanta, GA, 2015Resmini, Andrea, Reframing Information Architecture, ibid.van Gigch, John P., System Design, Modeling and Metamodeling, Plenom Press, 1991

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Stacy Merrill Surlastacy.surla@icfi.com

@stacysurla#reframeia

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